I was doing some internet surfing (haven;t been on this board in a while ..was on an audio sabbatical...LOL) and I saw a thread talking down the Velleman K4040 (mostly down). As a proud owner I want to share some details that may give some folks HOPE who may have one laying around and not realize they are sitting on gold.
For the price and capabilities as a kit when these came out, it was really a steal. Maybe not so much straight out of the box as designed...where they could be a 10, they designed as a 7.
I actually purchased mine used about 10 years ago, pre-built for a very good price. That price was probably because one side crackled and the other had a hum. Not TOO bad but there and that would NOT do. So i did some research and enlisted the aid of a guy who could actually read schematics and teach me some things.
The first steps was donning an indiana jones hat and searching the WEB version of the amazon for details on what the heck. I stumbled upon some very detailed "fixes" that entailed mostly replacing certain caps, resistors and such with different values, a jumper wire at one location and some other mystical magical things. That worked really well but still had that subtle hum which after agonizing time turned out to be needing an additional ground. Now we had it clean.
Did that make it a 10 yet? Nope, the key to that was canning any thought of the stock type tubes (EL34's regardless of brand) and getting 6L6GC's. Bingo. In my case, I spent $90 EACH for 8 GE NOS form 1961. OMG. Amazing...there was the 10....but wait there is more
It uses 1 12AU7 and 2 12AX7's. The input tubes were another journey but well worth it. Tried Mullard, RCA, GE, Baldwin, you name it but the winner - a NOS matched pair of sylvania Black plates, square getter.
Now it went from 10 to 11 (like Spinal tap, its was 1 better ..lol)
So someone might ask, why got to all that trouble ? You could just buy one newer, etc. yada yada. NOTHING looks like this. Nothing evokes the sweetness from my vinyl than this. So if you have one lying around, dust it off. Pretend you are restoring a 66 Fastback mustang. It may look a bit rough, but when its done...WOW.
And just so you DONT have to play indiana jones, I have a step by step guide to upgrade and the original manual...shared on one drive. I would love to hear back - HEy this worked for me !!!
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoQ15fY-JFvSpa1VIqlue-Qh60HRlA?e=O7s5SK
And also attached below